


Truth that remains... after climbing high

by charons_boat



Series: The Expansion Packs: Song Stories Edition [7]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Butterfly Effect, Clairvoyance, Construction, Death, Dream visions, Fate, Kidnapping, M/M, Visions of the Future, chef!taeil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charons_boat/pseuds/charons_boat
Summary: In Jungwoo's world, you could beat your own fate. He knew, though, that if he beat his own fate the world would be destroyed.
Relationships: Kim Jungwoo/Moon Taeil
Series: The Expansion Packs: Song Stories Edition [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765816
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Truth that remains... after climbing high

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NcityStories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NcityStories/gifts).



> kitchen beat is wild

The clock started to move the moment Moon Taeil was born. The clock was my own lifespan, and I'd always been told that if I wanted to survive, I needed to get to him first. But I didn't much care. I'd had a dream once that I sat in my kitchen and watched the world burn. It felt, somehow, irrevocably real, almost as if it were a vision of the future. A voice had whispered to me often in my dreams. I called it Mark. A lot of the time, my dreams came true. Sometimes, though, they were just noises. There was a lot of bass and a lot of industrial noise.

I dreamed, once and only once, that I fell from the scaffolding of a building being constructed. Someone had reached out a hand and called my name, but all I could hear after the first second was the noise of ongoing construction. I didn't want to understand at first, but some part of me intrinsically understood my dreams. So, just as I knew that my dream of sitting in the kitchen and watching the world burn had been the future if I survived my encounter with Moon Taeil, I knew that my dreaming of falling through thirteen stories' worth of scaffolding was my death.

No one ever really understood when I explained that I couldn't survive Taeil. They always told me that I just had to beat him in a fight or something similar. No one else quite understood that I couldn't beat my fate, that I didn't want to in the first place. Everything was connected, and that included my death. If I were to survive, something wrong would happen. The waves would come in slightly too early. Someone would say the wrong thing. Buttons would be pressed and the world would be shattered.

So, I waited my entire life for Taeil to find me. I dreamt and waited and went about my life, wondering and pondering when my fate would meet me. It was when I was twenty-three, still single, on my way to work in the morning that I happened across a construction sight. A man with black hair stood outside, and he turned when I got closer. I stopped, because I recognized him.

"Are you Taeil," I asked him. He nodded, looking surprised. "I think I've seen you around. My name is Jungwoo. How come you're standing out here? Isn't it dangerous?" He nodded, and then shrugged.

"I'm the chef-- well, I will be. This is gonna be a cafe and flower shop: cafe on the second and third floor, flower shop on the ground floor. I don't remember what was supposed to be on the upper floors, but there are a lot more planned. I think it's supposed to be like a strip mall but upwards instead of outwards," he explained. I smiled and nodded.

"Good luck with your business," I told him. I started to walk away, but he caught my wrist.

"Wait, I--" he swallowed. "I feel like I've met you before. Have we met before?"

"Perhaps I was in a dream once," I told him. I gently took my wrist from his hand and left.

Two weeks later, someone confused me with the heir of a wealthy company located in the city and kidnapped me. I was taken to the unfinished building, and I wondered idly once I woke up how many more floors were to be built.

"Here's what we bring to the table," a tall, scarred man said. The cadence of feet pounding up the stairs created a song in my head and I sang along with it. _nanana nana na… nanana nana na-na…_ My head whipped to the side as the tall man slapped me. "Stop that! Pay attention! It's your life at stake! Now-"

"Sir, we found this one snooping around downstairs," someone called out. When they pushed the man out of the shadow and into the moonlight, I recognized him. It was Taeil. He looked surprised to see me.

"Wha- Jungwoo, what are you-"

"No one said you could speak! Shut it," the tall man said. One of the men who'd come with him slapped Taeil.

"I saw you dragging him around and followed you! I called the police! They'll be here in five minutes," Taeil yelled. Time seemed to stop. Chaos ensued. I tried to get to Taeil, but the crowd shoved me farther away from him in their panic to run down the stairs and out of the building. I was pushed closer and closer to the edge of the building when one of the men noticed and smirked cruelly at me. Taeil bumped into the man when he tried to shove past to get to me, and it was that extra force that sent me over the edge of the building. Taeil screamed and stretched his hand out to me. My name sounded like pure terror as it spilled past his lips. I realized that somehow I'd misremembered the sounds in my dream. They'd never been the sounds of a building being built; they'd been pounding footsteps, whipping wind, and exploding gunshots.

"It was fate," I yelled as loudly as I could. Confusion flitted over Taeil's face and then I closed my eyes. For a split second, I felt everything. I was sure that they'd have to reconstruct the scaffolding in the morning. Then, blissfully, it was over.


End file.
